Random Thoughts

Reactor Girl (1991) #1-6 edited by Michel Vrána

Oops, I’m only on the second post in this blog series, and I’m already three days behind schedule… Typical.

I really enjoy a good anthology magazine. And for a publisher it can function as a tent-post publication if you can get it published regularly: While anthologies rarely sell well, they can express a publisher identity better than publishing separate titles. Like: “Ah, yes. That’s a very Raw book”.

But the book has to be cohesive to function like that, so let’s see what kind of anthology this is.

Vrána had previously published three issues of the mini comics sized Reactor Girl, so we get off to a flying start here, with lots of interesting artists (most of whom I’ve never heard of before).

Initially it seems a bit scattered (Kit with David Corr here)…

… but the longest story in the first issue, by the wonderful Carol Swain, pulls it all together.

And, yes, there’s definitely a through line here — many of the stories are pretty harrowing (Peter Ferguson here).

But also a lot of experimentation with form (Jason Stephens).

And even a fumetti about the technical innovation of the day: Answering machines (Steven Lungley).

Linda Carson tells us all about ear piercings.

Vrána himself (with Ron Lum) does a pretty incomprehensible thing about the titular character.

And that’s just the first issue. It’s only 32 pages, but it’s really dense, and it has a clear mood going. Anthologies that are this short are usually not very satisfying, but this feels like a full meal.

Karel Barx tells us about the dangers of man spreading.

In the third issue, Vrána writes the first editorial, and he certainly seems to have a definite idea for the magazine.

Each issue is half returning artists and half new ones, which is a good mix, I think: You want to see more of the artists you enjoy, but you also want surprises. Dominic Bugatto’s thing here is very interesting.

Nick Craine (who also did Cheese Heads) collaborates with his mother, Sylvia Markle-Craine, on a very nice little story.

Cinders McLeod does one of the few overtly political pieces here, but it reminds me: For a 1991 anthology, there’s a lot of women artists in here.

Another name I can’t remember from anywhere else — Andrew Robottom — does a quite intriguing four pager. I wonder whether many of these artists were going to art school in Montreal or something?

Hey! An early Marc Bell page! From before he got the art style he’s been using the past few decades. This is one of the fun things about reading old anthologies — you happen upon early work from people who got famous later.

I really enjoyed Laurent Ciluffo’s piece here — not just because of the intriguing artwork, but also because it’s so different from the denser pieces that surround it. It’s funny how that works in an anthology — you want an anthology that has an identity, but also pieces that challenge that.

Linda Carson does a multi media thing.

Dylan Horrocks shows up with a couple short pieces, but that’s not really surprising, since Tragedy Strikes was publishing his Pickle series. I think everybody Tragedy Strikes published also showed up in this anthology?

Vrána announces a new anthology that would have longer pieces — New Planet Showcase. That never happened.

Hey! Adrian Tomine! I really love his style in this era, before he cleaned it up. It’s loose and fun to look at. And the story is pretty great, too, and I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else? comics.org doesn’t say that it’s been reprinted, and:

Huh.

Aaron Straup-Cope contrinbutes one of the wildest pieces…

… while Molly Kiely does a gag.

Hey! Anne Rubinstein! I guess a lot of the artists here were also published in the Drawn & Quarterly magazine.

Anthologies have a tendency to taper off as the publisher grows less enthused by losing money, but that’s not the case here — it’s strong until the end.

Se tuer by Vincent Delbaere & Laurent Cilluto is great, for instance.

Which reminds me of another unusual thing about this anthology: Many of the pieces are by writer/artists duos. Single creator pieces are more normal for this sort of thing.

Gary Dumm & Joe Zabel & Jeff Evans finishes out the series with a quite American Splendorish (that’s a word) piece, which I guess is also autobio?

Comics series usually just stop publishing, but here Vrána actually announces that it’s been cancelled… sort of. He says that it’ll return in a handmade fashion with #7… but that didn’t happen.

I didn’t mention the Reactor Girl design — it’s very Desktop Publishing 1991, isn’t it?

Rich Kreiner writes in The Comics Journal 161, page 100:

Both Swain and Stephens are regular lumi-
naries in Tragedy Strikes’ anthology, Reactor
Girl: Swain with her succinct visitations and
Stephens generally having the last laugh with a
two-page spread at the end of the book (“Do-It-
Yourself Children’ s Drawings”) for your own
refrigerator). Between them they pretty much
establish the extremes of artistic aspiration,
leaving the equally wide continuum Of inten-
tions, means, and abilities to be staked Out by
the almost thirty contributors to the book’ s five
issues.
The title can boast of an unusually high
percentage of successes, due, no doubt, to the
broadly-based discrimination of editor Michel
Vrana, who also adds the titular strip to the
anthology. In the third issue, Vrana spells out
the book’s purpose and its glue:
Part of my mandate. is to bring artists and writers
from outside thefield 10 integrate the techniques and
aesthetics oftheir medium with that ofcomics, to have
comics artists experiment with new ways to express
themselves… With such a potential variety of media
and styles, the Reactor Girl theme oflife in the modern
urban environment serves to bind the stories together.
Though Reactor Girl’ s contents is spangled
with other Tragedy Strikes creators, it is far
from a vehicle of self-promotion. A sizable
majority of contributors are unknown to me and
list no previously published work in their per-
sonal notes. The assembled cast does not quite
provide the brave new cross-pollination that
Vrana aims for but it unfailingly demonstrates
diverse interests, individual venturesomeness,
and distinct, if sometimes tentative, talent.
The list of standouts would have to begin
With Linda Carson, whose compelling pieces
have appeared in each issue. Carson “considers
herself primarily a writer” and her facility with
language bears this out, particularly in her se-
ries, “Some Things You Need To Know”
(“Cream rises. Shit floats. Everyone on top got
there One way or another.”) Her topical text is
accompanied by arrangements of collage and
drawings. Carson lists a range of MFA diver-
sions which, perhaps, complicate equally inci-
Sive graphic statements. Her powers of obser-
vation seem sharp and true, and she constructs
rich, satisfying narrative portraits.
Cinders McLeod offers pointedly social
and political commentary, particularly in issue
#3′ s stirring “Why Are There No Women Car-
toonists?” Her tiny panels (as opposed to the
full-page doll clothings of issue #5) relentlessly
catalog Obstacles and injustices, uniting sec-
ond-hand cant and first-hand experience into a
sympathetic and running indictment of the in-
dustry and of each of us.
The cartoonists Of the anthology consis-
tently display a keen eye, sharp intellect, and
distinctive, attractive visuals, suggesting that
these elements are cultivated as part of the
Tragedy Strikes “house style.” As some artists
use artificial restrictions to more fully stimulate
creativity , Andrew Robottom overcomes acon-
fining graphic format to convey the complex
uncertainties of a one-night stand in issue #4.
Karel Barx (??) sketches a “Group Portrait” in
issue #2 that is light, deft, and incisive. As with
cringe’ that comes from being so far from the
cultural center of the world.”

The Slings & Arrows Comics Guide, page 534:

REACTOR GIRL
Tragedy Strikes Press: 6 issues 1991-1992
Committed to exploring comics in a variety of forms
(photo strips, mixed media, puzzles), around the central
theme of urban life, this Canadian anthology continues
from a run of minicomics published by editor Michel
Vräna, It’s key creators are Jason (Jay) Stephens (1-5) and
Carol Swain (1-4), the former with schoolboy Sparkie
McGee’s ABCs of things not to eat or that make you bleed,
the latter with noir tales in her distinctive style. In 3, the
mother and son team of Sylvia Markle-Craine and Nick
Craine offer a melancholy view of old age while Cinders
McLeod asks why there are no women cartoonists In a
simple, yet endearingly cartoony style. Better known for
work elsewhere, Dylan Horrocks turns up in 4 and 6,
Adrian Tomine in 5-6. The more avant-garde approaches
are the least satisfying, but the quirkiness of a McLeod and
the clear line of Laurent Cilluffo (6) offer a way past the
more wilfully difficult selections—NF

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

The Cheese Heads (1991) #1-5 by Nick Craine

Let’s see whether I remember how to do these blog posts… it’s been a while.

Err… is that white balance correct? Perhaps it was a mistake to use a green background here…

But let’s read the first four pages together.

So, OK, very mysterious. And this seems to have been drawn for a different form factor — looks magazine format-like, so you get these huge borders at the bottom.

I did not read this series at the time. First of all, I was at university, so I couldn’t really afford to buy everything I wanted to read. But second: I didn’t want to read this, because I assumed that it was yet another unambitious book based on the name, which reminded me of:

The infamous Rock Heads from Solson Publications, done at the height of the Black And White Boom And Bust.

I know, that’s stupid, but that’s life for you.

Hm… I think I have to adjust the light when I’m taking these snaps… but I’m too lazy to redo these pics.

Anyway, this starts off pretty well? We get these mysterious cheese head characters, and they’re on a mission, and there’s intrigue. And the artwork is engaging — it’s got that 90s indie thing going on, but also has echoes of, like, Rick Geary? And also… I’m getting Mauretania Comics vibes? Which are the best vibes.

It’s got that oblique way of moving from panel to panel, where things connect somehow, but tentatively.

Tragedy Strikes would publish Reactor Girl, but here it’s advertised as being published by Extra Small Press? Which is true! Huh; didn’t know about that… I think I’ve gotta try to find that.

Angst-ridden and post-modern. Right.

I’m not sure how much of this book was planned, but my guess would be “not a lot”. It flows from one non sequitur to the next more than anything.

But there’s also these pretty gruesome scenes. I wonder whether the inspiration is more from other comics like Flaming Carrot than from movies and literature?

Craine tries to do a lot of different things over these issues, and not everything is quite successful. Like this spread where a bomb goes off. It’s cool the way the panels fall from the sky, but it doesn’t really read “explosion”.

I’m also starting to wonder whether Craine is a Cerebus fan.

It’s not all Cheese Heads. Each issue has a few pages of the God Is A Plain Clothed Man serial, which is a lot less goofy than the main series.

And look who shows up in a back-up feature: Carol Swain! Her artwork is really badly reproduced, though.

There’s a call for submissions for Reactor Girl, which is now being published by Tragedy Strikes. The theme is the modern urban environment.

Yes… Cerebus.

Hah! Craine even namechecks Gerhard, and that wallpaper does look kinda like somebody’s trying to do a Gerhard wallpaper. But I guess Craine is Canadian? So it’s natural that he’d be reading Cerebus…

Like I said, Craine sure tries a lot of different things, and that’s entertaining, but often it’s just kinda unclear what we’re meant to see. Here the cop on the bike seems to have a bright explosion in his chest… but is that because that cheese head shot him? (Spoiler: No; he was apparently pulled to… heaven… or something.)

Ah — Craine had previously done two years of Cheese Heads strips for a student newspaper. And the plan was for Cheese Heads to run at least 20 issues.

Ah, the colours on the first issue weren’t supposed to be out of register like that…

I guess that explains why they did a second edition of the first issue (but I don’t have that one).

And then the cheese heads encounter a very tiny man, and the cop is in heaven. Honestly, at this point I thought it seemed like Craine had rather lost interest in the book — there’s a difference between inspired oddness and “eh, whatever”, and this seems a bit on the “eh, whatever” side.

Nice joke about dramatic lighting in TV series, though.

In the fifth issue we get a guest appearance by Dishman by John MacLeod. And basically nothing of interest happen, but they probably had fun collaborating?

And then the series end in the time honoured comics way: With a box saying “Continued…”.

Was Pickle to be Black Eye’s most celebrated title? They published so much good stuff (if I remember correctly) that I guess the competition is stiff. Perhaps Berlin?

Oh, the Crash magazine was originally to be published by Vortex Comics?

It was published by Drawn & Quarterly instead (and only lasted two issues).

OK, that’s it for The Cheese Heads. It’s very much one of those series somebody straight out of art school would make — there’s a lot of references, there’s some poetry, there’s a lot of Lynchian mystery floating around… and there’s not really a lot of direction.

But it certainly shows promise — and it is a pretty good read.

Comics Scene CSV2-029, page 13:

Mafia widow with a nuclear
device hidden in her leg? A
tiny Barney Miller lookalike
living in a car glove compartment? A
government agent with the words
“CIA” etched into his forehead?
Hopefully, the average comics reader
hasn’t met many people like those
who inhabit the twisted world of The
Cheese Heads, published bi-monthly
by Tragedy Strikes Press.
This series, by 20-year-old cheese
wiz Nick Craine, originated as a
comic strip in Craine’s native
Ontario, Canada.
“It began as a strip for The Ontari-
on, the University of Guelph newspa-
per,” says Craine. “Guelph is sort of
the sound of wet cement with your
shoe in it. The strip was originally
based on angst-ridden university stu-
dents, and it has grown from that
loose premise. It was a gag strip that
now has a dark, morose feel.
“The phrase ‘cheese head,’ ”
adds
Craine, “is considered an insult to na-
tives of Wisconsin, the ‘Cheese State.’
I took it quite literally and designed
three characters with cheese for
brains.
Once Craine decided upon the di-
rection for The Cheese Heads comic
book, he reworked his three nameless
title characters, whose personalities
vary from contemptible to timid to
asinine.

[…]

it seems The Cheese Heads tread
far from the path taken by most
comics, it just may be due to the
array of influences behind it.
“Dan Clowes’ Eightball is a really
nice piece of work,” says Craine. “All
the good things that can be said about
it have already been said. I started
reading Robert Crumb over the last
two-and-a-half years in Fantagraph-
ics’ reprint books. I love Monty
Python’s Flying Circus, but I don’t
think I could duplicate that humor.
It’s so original, it can’t be imitated.
Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot ICS #2
& #211 is probably one of the first
indie books I ever picked up. It was
too weird to be true! IVackiness for
wackiness’ sake!”
As Craine began publishing his
own series, he made an effort to learn
more about comics history, which, he
says, “was like discovering a whole
new world.” But it was a fellow
Canadian who provided the jolt he
needed to get his ideas from his head
to paper.
“What really got me into doing
comics in the first place,”
says
Craine, “was Dishman, about a ninth-
grade history teacher who has the
power to clean dishes by telekinesis.
He looks for crime to battle and
instead finds young kids smoking and
tells them what a bad habit it is. It
comes off beautifully. The book is by
John McLeod, who’s also from
Guelph. Here’s a guy in my home
town publishing his stuff for next to
nothing. John’s a real inspiration.”

Rich Kreiner writes in The Comics Journal 161, page 101:

Michael Allred (creator of Grafik Muzik
back then and Madman Adventures right now)
is more fond of Nick Craine’s The Cheese
Heads than I. Allred notes the excitement of
“story and art brought together in one clear
vision” and “its unique style vibrating raw
energy.” As these are attributes One might well
ascribe to Allred’s own work, the approbation
deserves some attention since it could indeed
take one to know one.
I can’t quibble with anything that Allred
says specifically. It’ s just that I prefer
my clear visions and style vibrating
raw energy with a surer sense ofdirec-
tion and purpose— as in Allred’ s own
material — than has thus far been
revealed in the five issues Of The
Cheese Heads.

[…]

Things often pick up, however, when the
stars aren’t around. Certain scenes, especially
later in the run, are marvelously choreographed:
issue #3, which sports a terrific cover, has an
exquisitely paced sequence in which a Cheeser
reveals himself. In fact, there’s sufficient op-
portunity to believe that the book is materially
advancing. Whetherbycreativechoiceorreader
acclimation, the fathomable seems to have eS-
tablished something of a foothold. Issue #5,
with another great cover, is the run’ s high point,
likely no coincidence as it features the “most
explosive crossover event Of a lifetime” when
the Cheese Heads mooch a cigarette from John
MacLeod’s Dishman. Several issues have also
featured snippets of Craine’s “God is a Plain
Clothes Man” which is steeped in atmospheric
observation; progressing at a rate slightly slower
than the Cheese Heads’ road show, it has yet to
gain momentum. (Craine does prosper under
the rigors Of collaboration, as evidenced in
Reactor Girl #3’s “Still Life,” where he is
guided by author Sylvia Markle-Craine, his
mom.)

Wizard Magazine 025, page 114:

Art Director Nick Craine is the creator of what can
probably be called Tragedy Strikes’ flagship title, The
Cheese Heads, despite many aspects that would apparently
make it an unappealing comic. It is the one Tragedy
Strikes comic that is not directly related to mini-comics
(although it has featured a guest appearance from Dish-
man), and it is the company’s most distinctive and rec-
ognizable title. The Cheese Heads is a bizarre, surreal
road trip featuring three nameless characters who liter-
ally have cheese for brains! Despite these unconventional
qualities that would seemingly detract from the comic’s
appealability, The Chæse Heads is one of Tragedy Strikes’
more accessible books.

I don’t think this series has been collected.

[Edit some months later:]

I couldn’t resist tracking down the second printing of the first issue — the original cover had been misprinted, so to make up for that (or something), a new version was printed a year later. I can’t imagine that made any sort of business sense — surely they wouldn’t expect to sell more than a handful of copies of this? But perhaps they just wanted to have a nice set…

But the series was cancelled with the fifth issue anyway, and nothing was resolved storywise, so it’s not like there was a “set” to sell anyway. (But they probably didn’t know that the series was going to be cancelled when they did this…)

So we get new covers, and two new pages that explain how this series came to be. And these two new pages sort of recap the entire series, too…

And then a new pinup.

And a back cover by Michael Allred.

So that’s all very nice and stuff, but like… uhm…

OK, I’m done.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

Winter is coming, so I think it’s time to do another blog series about old comics.

I did have some problems deciding what comics publisher to go for this time. Eclipse Comics was in many way the ideal publisher for this sort of thing — a wide variety of comics in various formats and genres, and most of the comics are pretty forgotten these days. But I’ve run out of companies like that. Somebody suggested First Comics, but that seems kinda dull. Sure, they published some fun stuff, but the series had a tendency to go on and on and on out of inertia, apparently.

An ideal publisher is one that 1) published a bunch of comics that I want to re-read, and 2) had stuff that I haven’t read at all before.

So I’m seeing just three publishers left, really: Drawn & Quartery (but pre-2000, only, because after that it’s mostly graphic novels, and writing about a graphic novel is basically doing a review, and I hate doing reviews), Pirahna Press (the DC imprint did a lot of weird stuff), and, yes, Black Eye.

Black Eye Books started off as Tragedy Strikes Press (and I’ll be covering those issues, too), but then tragedy struck, they split up and Black Eye rose out of the ashes.

They didn’t publish all that many series — they existed between 1991 and 1998… and then ressurrected a couple years ago! So I’ll be doing all the 90s books, and then all the new books as well, probably.

It was an interesting era in many ways — and probably the hardest decade ever to publish comics. It was after the enthusiasm of both the Direct Market had run out, and after people stopped hoping for another mainstream blockbuster like Maus, too. So there was a lot of tentative “is it possible to publish this thing now? how about this thing?” and the answer to most of those questions was “no”. It wasn’t until Persepolis/Fun Home that people figured out how to do comics publishing again, but by that time Black Eye had gone under.

(While pulling out the “Black Eye” shortbox to snap the pics for this blog post, I did happen upon some publishers I haven’t previously considered doing — like Alternative Comics and Aeon/Mu… Hm… Perhaps those are possibilities, too. Next winter, though.)

I’ll be aiming for one post per day, so this blog series should last about a month.